


Animatronic Ink Stains

by Rivethart



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine, Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: And Marla wants a new boss, Animated FNaF Crew, Bendy is not bad, Bendy is not good, Boris just wants his clarinet, Crossover, Joey is in the walls, Organic Ink, Sammy is not a good example of humanity, Shenanigans Afoot, The Ink Machine is powerful and mysterious, and should be respected, bendy and the ink machine - Freeform, fnaf - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 21:43:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10908024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivethart/pseuds/Rivethart
Summary: Marla Malley is at her wits end with her boss, Frederick Fazbear. They just had to shut down a store due to some, er, unforeseen events, and now he's gone and bought an old, decrepit animation studio in order to try and turn a buck with a Freddy Fazbear cartoon. Their forage into the newly bought property is not showing promise, especially for this so-called 'Ink Machine.'Just what is ink made of, anyway?





	Animatronic Ink Stains

            “I’ve bought an animation studio.”

            Marla Malley froze, clipboard digging into her palms as she tightened her grip on the pressboard. She glanced away from the construction workers, who were busy unbolting the neon sign from above the double-door entrance to the restaurant. Frederick Fazbear was beaming through his graying beard, looking far too happy for the current situation.

            “You bought a _what_?” She asked carefully, keeping her voice even.

            “An animation studio.” Fazbear folded his hands behind himself, looking proud even as the ‘Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria’ sign was pulled from its spot above the doors.

            Marla had to take a few quick steps backwards as two men emerged from the dimly lit building, rolling a large Freddy Fazbear animatronic by on a heavy-duty dolly. The mascot had been recently cleaned, leaving behind a whiff of bleach as the men steered it towards the moving truck parked across the two handicapped spots nearest the door.

            “Um, why…” She had to pause and think of how to tactfully ask her boss _“What the ever-loving FUCK were you THINKING?”_ , but he beat her to the punch.

            “Because television marketing is the future!” Fazbear threw his arms up, beaming at the cloudy Monday-morning sky. “Look at McDonalds – they have their clown in animated shorts already, and that’s just a fast food place. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria is a _restaurant_ , a sit-down and eat place.” He dropped his arms to his sides, fists planted firmly on hips. “Now just think of what we can do with our crew – Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy, having adventures all throughout the land! It’ll be a smash hit, and send our profits skyrocketing!”

            The men wheeled back an empty dolly and shoved through the doors, which offered little resistance. Through the glass Marla could see them march up to the stage and begin maneuvering Bonnie the Bunny off the stage, the next of the little group to be exiled. The bleached spots on his suit were incredibly obvious, even in the dim light – around his jaws, down his front, and on his hands, the fur was all destroyed, rubbed into a pale pastel purple by bleach. A piece of paper was taped to his chest, but he was rushed past too quickly for Marla to see what was on it. Freddy had had a paper taped to his chest as well.

            “Sir,” she tapped a toe against the sidewalk, “Are you sure this is a good idea? We just had to shut this location down due to the, um, _you know_. Publicity is poor right now, which means profits will dip. Can we _afford_ to fund an animation studio and produce a cartoon?”

            “Bah,” Fazbear waved her concerns away with a careless flip of his hand, “It will blow over. Besides, we have 299 other stores all over the country. Shutting one store down isn’t going to break us.” He looped his thumbs through his belt loops and rocked back on his heels. “And the studio was cheap, and all decked out. Recording studio in the basement, fully furnished offices, up-to-date wiring, the works. It even comes with some fancy ‘ink machine’ thing.”

            “Ink machine?” Marla tugged the pen from her hair, where it had been wedged in her bun, and tapped it against the top of her clipboard.

            Fazbear moved to hold one of the doors open as Bonnie was wheeled out, leaving Chica alone on the stage, the only one left in the flickering spotlight. “Yeah, ink machine. I saw the blue prints when I bought the property – it’s some kind of ink press, like to make organic ink.”

            “Organic ink?” Marla scribbled down ‘ink machine - ???’ on the top of her daily itinerary, which was always at the front of her clipboard.

            “Yes!” Fazbear let the door swing shut and grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the building and into a stray spot of sunshine that was struggling through the clouds. “Organic ink – imagine it. Not only will Fazbear Entertainment be producing top-of-the-line cartoons, but we’ll be saving the planet as we do so!” He began to bounce a bit, energy surging through him as his head began churning with ideas. “We’ll use recycled paper and pens,” he declared, pointing at the clipboard in his assistant’s hands. Familiar with this routine, Marla flipped to a blank page of lined paper and began to jot down the ideas he was listing. “Look into getting recycled paper, and pens,” he demanded, “Also, look into renewable energy for the building – solar or water or whatever is popular these days. Also look up what ink is made of – we’ll need to know if we want to run the machine.” He was pacing now, fingers running through his beard as he continued to mutter about his plans for a ‘greener, kinder Fazbear’s.’ Marla kept writing until he began talking about ‘solar-powered ovens for the restaurants!’ at which point she took a break.

            The men wheeled out Chica, who had a sheet of paper taped to her chassis instead of her bib, as the two on the roof lowered the once-bright sign to the pavement. The neon Freddy Fazbear face was dull and almost sinister, the tubes unlit and leaving only an outline of his face to stare at the world. Several of the tubes were broken, by both vandals and weather over the past few years. The men hauled it to the large rental dumpster at the end of the parking lot, which was already loaded down with broken chairs and soda-stained tables.

            Fazbear had descended into mumbling to himself, tugging on his beard and mustache as he thought. The men returned with the dolly and slipped through the doors for the last of the animatronics. Marla watched as they crossed to the permanently-closed Pirate’s Cove and drew back the ancient curtain. Foxy the Pirate stood in the center of the slightly-raised stage, costume heavily damaged, jaw hanging from a single screw instead of the required six. Instead of having a paper taped to his chest, there was one hanging on his hook. The men struggled to move the rusted animatronic onto the dolly, and the two who had helped dismantle the sign hurried inside to help them.

            “Now then,” Fazbear clapped, making his assistant jump in surprise, “They’re almost finished. Shall we go?”

            “Go where?” Marla asked, thinking of the three-hour drive back to the central office. It was barely mid-morning, meaning they’d be back by lunch. She had a stack of papers to file and a dozen or so reporters to call, and if they left now she could probably finish before closing tonight.

            “To the studio, of course!” Fazbear rocked on his feet, beaming. “We’ll follow the moving truck there – it’s only a few towns over.” He jumped forward to hold open the door for the men once again as Foxy was wheeled out. One of the men grunted ‘thanks’ as they passed, and another muttered ‘good riddance,’ toward the store itself.

            Marla frowned but understood. After what had happened within the small building, she could understand not wanting to stick around. “Why are the animatronics going to the studio?” She asked, falling into step with Fazbear as he headed towards his truck, which was parked safely away from both the store and the dumpster, avoiding any errant specks of dust.

            “Motivation of course!” Fazbear explained once they’d reached his truck. Thanking the stars she’d thought to wear slacks that day, Marla climbed into the passenger seat, settling her clipboard in her lap so her hands were free to pull on the belt. Fazbear quickly rounded the truck and, being much taller than the woman, easily slid into the driver’s seat and started up the engine. “And reusing these broken animatronics will be a lot cheaper than creating new models for the artists to use. This way, they’ll be able to base the characters off the real thing!”

            Fazbear began waxing poetic about the cartoon again and, thanks to several years of practice, Marla rested her head against the window and tuned him out, letting her own thoughts wander. The moving truck pulled out of the lot, three of the movers squeezed in the front, the fourth following in his own car. Fazbear waited until they’d turned left and headed towards the highway to follow.

            Halfway there, Fazbear pulled over at a McDonalds and the two of them had a late breakfast. They ended up spending almost an hour in the small restaurant, sitting close to the complimentary TV near the children’s play area, which was running McDonald’s cartoons on a loop. Fazbear spoke about the shows ups and downs the entire time, his running commentary only interrupted by the few minutes he took to inhale his food.

            By the time they reached the studio the movers were leaving, looking tired and a bit dirtier than they had leaving the restaurant. Fazbear tossed them a friendly wave before pulling into the gravel lot. Marla leaned forward as stared at the building they’d come to.

            It was three stories tall, not including the basement that was visible where the ground dipped near the south side of the lot. The walls of the studio were paneled wood, some type of hard wood that was yellowish in color and run thick with dark grain patterns. Most of the windows were boarded up, covered in neat sheets of plywood, a few of which had been tagged in various colors of spray paint. Above the front door, which wasn’t a grand double-glass entrance but instead a simple wood door with a round knob, was a white sign that had been bleached by the sun, rendering the logo nearly invisible.

            “Joey Drew Studios?” Marla read, squinting at the round, darker blob at the end of the faded logo. It seemed to be a face of some kind, and had a smile full of teeth beneath two odd-shaped eyes.

            “Yep!” Fazbear wasted no time leaping out of the truck, slamming the door behind him. Marla winced at the loud noise and shot his back a sour look before she followed suit. “It was a premier animation studio in the 40’s and 50’s, up until the owners’ disappearance.”

            Marla paused mid-step, flats grinding into the gravel lot. “Disappearance?” She asked, a familiar note of dread growing in her gut. She’d had quite enough of disappearances in the past few years to make her sick of the very word itself.

            “Don’t worry,” Fazbear flapped his hand as he reached the simple front door, which had the key stuck in the lock, left by the movers, “He was a draft-dodger. Coward disappeared in 1950 when the draft for the Korean War started. Disappeared without a trace.” He muttered some rather unflattering things as he struggled with the lock, finally popping the door open. It was swollen, as though with humidity, though the air was dry at the moment.

            The door opened into a hallway, which was plastered with yellowed posters of cartoons featuring characters called ‘Bendy’ and ‘Boris.’ There were a few black marks on the floor, showing where the dolly wheels had slipped in ink and left a trail. The light was dim and flickering, the air heavy with dust and a stale, caustic smell.

            Fazbear happily led the way, humming an old-sounding tune that was boppy and bouncy. Marla followed, skirting the patches of ink leaking from the ceiling. Odd, thick tubes full of what looked like sluggish-moving oil were bolted to the walls, covered in dust and littered with thin cracks. The hallway opened into a large room, which had a table in the middle and a projector propped up on a chair at the far end. It was running an empty reel, clicking and stuttering in time with the flickering of the white square of light on the wall.

            “Hmph,” Fazbear huffed and moved to turn off the projector. “Movers must have bumped it.” He checked the bulb, tapping it and pulling his hand away with a hiss. Marla looked around the room as he did that, frowning at the holes in the walls that had been sloppily boarded up with wood planks. The entire building had an air of disuse and neglect.

            “So this place has been closed for, uh, about thirty years?” She guessed, moving closer to Fazbear. He dropped his burnt finger from his mouth and spun on his heel to nod.

            “Yep! We got it for a steal.” He looked around, up at the creaking ceiling, then back at the cracked floorboards. “It just needs some TLC, then it’ll be good to go!” He stepped around her. “I told the men to put Freddy and friends in the storyboard room, it’s this way.” He strode down the dim hallway without a care in the world. Frowning, Marla followed him, then nearly walked into his back when he stopped. “Dammit! Some of those little bastards got in.”

            Peering around her taller boss, she could see ‘DREAMS COME TRUE’ scribed on the wall with black paint. The words were runny, and there was a puddle of the paint beneath them, staining the floorboards. Fazbear huffed and blustered for a minute, before throwing his hands up and stomping past the vandalism. Marla followed, a thick shiver running down her spine as she passed the words. None of this boded well for the studio, or her sanity.

            “Ah, look, the Ink Machine!” Fazbear picked up his pace and led the way into a large room that harbored a giant machine at the far end. It was boxy, with a huge nozzle on one end that tilted towards the floor. On the other end was a gigantic drum of ink, half-full of the black fluid. Fazbear rushed up to it and immediately began to examine the complex machinery, humming that same boppy tune as before.

            Marla was slower to enter the room, her attention drawn to the drawings papering the walls. As her boss enthused over the machine, she turned to the left and froze. Staring at her from the dark corner, in all his black and white glory, was…was…

            The Marionette.

            It moved one long arm to place a finger before his perpetually smiling mouth, and Marla choked on the scream thrashing in her chest.

            “Marla? What is it, woman, you’re as pale as a sheet!” Fazbear’s large hand clapped down on her shoulder, breaking her staring contest with the malicious puppet. The assistant jerked back and whipped her head around to look up at her boss with dinner-plate eyes.

            “The – the puppet! In the corner!” She spun back around to peer at the corner and was met with the cheerful smile of a 1950’s-style cartoon character. He had a white face, a black body, and pie-cut eyes above a wide smile. The cardboard cutout was leaning against the wall, harmless and, dare she say it, cute. “Wh-what?”

            Fazbear chuckled, a condescending tone to his laughter, as he patted her head. “Ah, Marla, the marionette isn’t here,” He reassured her. “We stopped manufacturing that outdated model years ago. The only one here aside from us is Bendy. And, of course, Freddy and his friends.” He turned to motion to the animatronics, which were lined up neatly on the other side of the room. Marla had been so startled by the cutout she hadn’t noticed them.

            “Oh, ah, my mistake.” Marla stepped away from his hand and ran a hand down her face.

            “It’s alright, this would be a lot for any woman to handle! A dark, spooky place like this is no place for a lady.” Fazbear clapped a hand on her shoulders and let out a loud bellow of laughter, “It’s a damn good thing you’re no lady!” Still chuckling at his own joke he wandered back over to the machine.

            Frowning and rubbing her shoulder, Marla moved to stand beside the animatronics, deciding to deal with the devils she did know rather than the plywood one she didn’t. This close she could finally take a look at the papers attached to the animatronics. Freddy was closest, so she looked at him first.

            Most of the paper was taken up by a cartoonish picture of Freddy Fazbear himself, complete with top hat, bowtie, and microphone. The bear was sharply dressed in black slacks and a white button-down shirt, complete with a black vest and suit jacket. He had on cartoonish gloves, like Mickey Mouse almost, and on his feet were black shoes with white spats. There were several pictures of his face drawn in the rest of the page, showing different emotions from different angles. There was a picture of him from behind, with a little tail wagging past the coat tails. He looked very…dapper, especially considered to the bleach-soaked version Marla was standing in front of.

            She moved down the line, seeing similar sketches on the papers taped to Bonnie and Chica’s fronts, and the paper stuck on Foxy’s hook. Bonnie was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with a pizza on it, sporting the same gloves as Freddy. Chica was in a very feminine dress that reached her knees and was covered with an apron. In every picture she had some kind of food or cooking tool near her feathery hands. Foxy was dressed in complete pirate garb, including a long coat, tricorn hat, and a pair of chipped cutlass. Unlike Bonnie and Freddy, he didn’t have gloves, just anthropomorphic paws.

            They were well done sketches, professional quality, and Marla warmed a bit towards the idea of a Freddy Fazbear show. If they used these designs it would no doubt be a hit with the kids – they were downright adorable. Obviously this was not an impulse move on Fazbear’s part.

            Speaking of Fazbear, he had left the room. Marla hadn’t noticed him leaving, but she could hear his footsteps in the near-silent studio as he wandered around the halls outside. A few times she thought she heard him say something, similar to ‘aha!’ or ‘found it!’. With him looking for something in the halls, Marla moved over to the machine and gave it a closer look.

            It was large – taller than her, brushing the ceiling – and bolted to the floor. The large nozzle was dripping ink on the floor, more than likely permanently staining the boards beneath the mess. Marla jotted down a note on her clipboard to look into buying acetone in bulk. There was no doubt that the cleaning crew would need a drum full.

            “MARLA!” Fazbear bellowed, before appearing in the doorway. She turned away from the machine, a question about what he’d been doing on the tip of her tongue, but he cut her off before she could even begin to speak. “Marla, I’m going to turn on the machine. I need you to stay in here and make sure it works.” Before she could answer he dashed off.

            “How will I know if it’s working right?” She muttered, stepping away from the machine and eyeing it suspiciously, waiting for it to jump to life. Any machine this large had to be loud, and probably made a terrible mess as it made the ‘organic ink.’ Huh, speaking of making ink, where was the input? Marla rounded the machine to the nozzle, which was still steadily drip-drip-dripping ink, though the puddle hadn’t seemed to grow any larger since she’d come into the room. If this was an ink-making machine, where was the place to put in the ingredients? Speaking of ingredients, what was professional-grade ink made of anyway? Coal, black shells, blackberries? She would have to do more research when they got back to the office.

            There was a loud **_THUNK_** and the machine beside her chugged to life, whining and thrumming as the gears began to turn. It shuddered and within seconds, the drip-drip-dripping became a steady stream of shiny black ink. Marla took several steps back, trying to save her shoes from the splash-back. A second clunk behind her had the woman jumping and turning, ready to lambast Fazbear for sneaking up on her.

            Fazbear wasn’t there. In fact, if Fazbear was there, she wouldn’t be able to see him. The door, which had only moments ago been open and clear, was now covered with several thick wooden boards. The cartoon cutout that had scared her was also missing, vanished as though it had never been there in the first place. Behind her the machine let out a mighty groan, straining against the bolts holding it to the floor, and ink began to gush from the nozzle like water from a firehose.

            The black, viscous fluid flooded the floor, gobbling up her gray flats, staining them as small waves of ink splashed against her ankles Marla yelped and clutched her clipboard to her chest like a shield as she backed against the wall where the cutout had been standing. Across the room, the ink eagerly lapped at the feet of the animatronics, staining the faux fur and beginning to creep farther up the suits. Marla winced, unable to help but calculate the cost of the damage. She’d been working for Fazbear for far too long.

            Another almighty groan was loosed by the ink machine, recapturing her attention. Something blacker than black emerged from the spout, sinking into the ink that was growing higher around her legs. It was nearly up to her knees now. Marla muttered something between ‘Oh God’ and ‘Fuck me’ as the blacker-than-black thing began to stand, revealing a tall, thin figure that seemed to actually be _made_ of the ink. It cackled a bit as it rose, throwing its head back and spitting ink several feet. Legs shaking, Marla began to slide down the wall, raising her clipboard to protect her face, leaving only her eyes peeking out.

            The figure drew a hand across his face, wiping the ink from his eyes. A large, toothy smile emerged in a white face, along with a pair of black eyes that sparkled with intelligence. Its eyes darted to her face, and Marla let out a very brave squeak as it’s smile widened, teeth growing sharp and eyes narrowing.

            This was definitely _not_ the puppet.

**Author's Note:**

> Behold, crack! Enjoy it!
> 
> Needed a break from Undertale after being steeped in it for over a year, so I took a break to become obsessed with Bendy and the Ink Machine. I can't wait for chapter 3! 
> 
> Please leave a kudos or a comment if you liked it! 
> 
> Cheers!


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